the most absorbing kind to carry off the faults of style which torment the reader on every page. Slip-shod English is, alas! so common that the reviewer, weary of his task, finally passes it by. Many engaging writers are careless, accepting without thought tricks of false speech formed by guess and established by custom. But Mr. Fawcett's style is apparently the result of much energetic effort, since such grotesque and monstrous modes of expression do not come easily to the bidding. To accept them would be an avowal not only of ignorance, but of the worst taste. What does Mr. Fawcett mean, for example, by "a commandant engagement"? "She had got to think herself deferentially persecuted." "One's sight need not be lifted too high to span his dimensions." "A few nurses with children were to be glimpsed." "It expressed an actual exorbitance of amiability." We entreat Mr. Fawcett, who studies so much with a careful eye, to study Mrs. Malaprop anew, remembering that her contributions to the English language were never supposed to be witty in themselves, but to be the cause of wit in others. It seems to us that the writer of
"A Palace-Prison" has erred in putting her facts concerning the treatment of the insane into the form of fiction. Novels with a humanitarian purpose have effected great results, but in those cases it has been necessary first to alter and move public opinion and to arouse sympathy. This result is not needed when any reform in the management of insane-asylums is concerned. The thing is to have the wrongs and abuses described here clearly proved, and to create a special channel for the energies of those who hate evil and evil-workers. The story is, however, sufficiently well told to rouse horror and pain in the most dormant and to stir the liveliest sense of pity.
German novelists seem hardly to supply the demand made upon them by the foreign reader, and since the great harvest reaped when the fresh ground was first broken by the translator, there remain only the gleanings. But "A Hard Heart" is an extremely pleasant and readable story, told with simplicity of purpose and turning on questions of real heart and feeling. The character of Frau Sybilla is forcibly presented: strong and for a time relentless in bearing her own woes and in making others suffer, she at last listens to the voice of her conscience, and alters the course of things for those she can make happy. There is no doubt of the popularity of these German stories, and it lies, we believe, in their reflection of the simple elementary emotions of human beings. The men are not dilettanti, who play with ideas until they forget the feelings which ought to lie behind them, and the women limit their range of thought to what lies within their reach. Thus their hopes and fears, loves and passions, are certain to offer a pleasing and idyllic effect which is refreshing to the reader after the more elaborate efforts to do and be and suffer made by our blasé and æsthetically-minded heroes and heroines.
Books Received.
